


Home

by odetopersephone



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, One Shot, Steggy - Freeform, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:48:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5880031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odetopersephone/pseuds/odetopersephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after the end of WWII, Peggy tracked down the Valkyrie and the SSR recovered Captain Steven Grant Rogers safe and sound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

It had been four days since they recovered Steve from the ice. It had also been four days since the last time Peggy had lain down to sleep.

She was waiting in an empty corridor at the military hospital. Even though she had been the one finding the location of the plane, no one had let her see him. Peggy flattened her pants against the top of her thighs, lost in thought. Howard was taking care of him with the best team of doctors the Allies could offer, so she knew he was safe. According to others, Steve was alive and well but for all she knew, they could be lying to her.

Peggy had never felt this weak. She wasn’t doing a thing to help Steve and she had never been the kind to sit around while others did things for her. The stillness of the green coloured corridor was making her the worst kind of uneasy, restless even.

Every time she heard footsteps her heart raced and all of her body became stiff with alertness. Even after days without sleeping a full night, she felt able to fight anyone or anything that came into the door uninvited. The war could be over but HYDRA’s threat lingered; it would not go down as easily as the Axis.

Quietly, she stretched her body, raising her arms above her head. Peggy thought of things to say Steve; usually that’s how she tried to distract herself from her current uselessness. Resuming her position, she put her hand on her pocket, feeling the coldness of Steve’s compass. She closed her hand around it, the only proof that they’d actually taken Steve and his belongings out of the Valkyrie.

When she found his location, Peggy had tried to get there herself but she was quickly taken into a vehicle and kept there, in the company of two privates. Apparently, “women in love do crazy stuff” and she “could ruin the whole process if Captain Rogers happened to be dead”. At the time she thoroughly thought about those words: if Steve was dead, which was likely, there wasn’t much she could do to make the process of removing him out of the ice take a wrong turn. Not unless the SSR had other plans. Maybe there were other items inside the Valkyrie they’d want to retrieve… In that case, Steve was being treated as the tin soldier, Howard’s science project, not has the human life that deserved respect.

In a couple of hours, she was notified that Captain Steven Grant Rogers was in fact alive and was to be taken to a military hospital.

The following days were simple fragments in her mind. After fighting a couple of sergeants, she managed to be taken along to the hospital. She waited. She saw Howard, passing by, emerging from an observation room in the company of two other men in uniforms. Then she waited a little more.  She spoke to Howard for a couple a seconds, in which he told her not to worry.

Green linoleum, white uniforms, beige plastic chairs. The faint sound of laughter in the nurses’ room, the radio, the constant buzz that haunted her. Water, bland meals, apples. Sanitation products, metal. That’s all she could see, hear, taste and smell. She didn’t remember much of feeling.

Peggy pulled her brown hair back, tapping the floor with the point of her shoe. She had tried to put a list together of all things she wanted to tell Steve as soon as she could see him. She wanted to tell him about the end of the war! She hoped he wouldn’t feel too bad about missing it out, but she was sure he’d feel happy and relieved.

Steve. His kind ways and his greater-than-life wish to do _the right thing_ made him the most special human being. It was funny, the feeling she got when she thought of Steve. She wanted to keep him, to live with him somewhere private. The two of them secretly hidden from the world, safe from it.

Smiling, Peggy thought of the time she’d met him. The scrawny but brave boy from Brooklyn who’d throw himself into the menace of a grenade in a vain endeavour to keep others protected. The heart of a soldier that now had a fitting physique.

For a second, she was reminded of the looks other women had started giving him and how he’d politely smile and occasionally return such looks. She felt a pang of jealousy and quickly tried to ignore the possibilities her mind presented her.

She looked at the clock at the end of the corridor and got up. While she walked back and forth in that dreadful, she thought once again of all the things she wanted to tell him. Peggy thought of him and of all the seconds he had been near her.

 “Agent Carter.” a soft male voice with a familiar accent broke into her thoughts.

Looking directly at the source of the voice she saw a tall man, in a RFA uniform. She felt like smiling. A boy in blue, just like all of her childhood friends that left for war before she had a chance to say goodbye.

“Mr Stark asked me to inform you that Captain Rogers would be able to receive visits in three hours,” he paused for a moment. “But if you’re ready in one, he could see you first.”

She stared at him wide-eyed for several seconds.

“Agent…”

“I’ll be seeing him, yes, of course!” Peggy’s hand went back to her pocket and grasped the compass. “I can see him right now.”

“The nurses are currently taking him to a more comfortable room and Mr Stark suggested you might feel the need to refresh yourself and maybe change clothes.”

The RFA man was incredibly polite and spoke in the softest tone, and yet conveyed his message with such efficiency that Peggy felt a little embarrassed of being so dull with her answers.

“Yes, I’d like that. Thank you, Officer…” she let the words hang as if she was asking his name.

“Jarvis. Edwin Jarvis.” The man smiled softly. “May we, then?”

The officer pointed her way, and she followed him. She would hardly ever forget the face of the man who brought her such good news.

* * *

 

Peggy let her hand on the doorknob for a second before coming in. She had changed into a clean uniform and washed her face. She had even put on a little bit of lipstick. Collecting all her strength, she opened the door, getting into the room.

Steve was reclined against his pillow, with his eyes closed.

“Peggy! I’m glad you were able to join us!”

She didn’t even hear Howard’s voice as Steven finally opened his eyes to meet hers. She nearly ran to the chair next to his bed, which looked exactly like the one she had been sitting on for the past few days. Sitting on it, she took his hand.

He had been about to speak but when her hand took his, he closed his mouth, blue eyes watering.

Howard stayed in the room for a minute more, and then left, overwhelmed by the silence. As Howard soundlessly closed the door behind him, a tear trailed down Steve’s face.

Peggy softly touched his face, wiping the tear away.

“What’s wrong?” she softly asked, with a slight smile.

Steve spoke so low that she could barely hear what he said. “You’re warm.”

She too shed a tear. He was there, alive. Peggy said a silent prayer, resting her forehead against his big hand. She begged God she wouldn’t soon wake up outside this room, still waiting for news, or worse, that when she’d wake up, she’d be in her own bed, and Steve would still be gone.

“Peggy… Peggy, don’t cry… Please…” Steve’s voice was away from steady but it was surprisingly coming to its normal state. She felt Steve’s hand on her hair, brushing it away.

She looked at him, finally allowing herself to take a full deep breath for the first time in months. “Next time I ask for your coordinates, you just give them to me, understood?”

“Yes ma’am.” Steve smiled, brushing her whitened knuckles with his thumb.

Peggy let out a relieved laugh and kissed him. This was anything like the rushed kiss they’d shared before. Neither of them could fight the happiness that took over them; they took their time, lips and hands touching, smiles shared between kisses.

Steve moved slightly away, running his hand through soft locks of her hair. Looking into her eyes, he started asking questions. First simple questions like “What day is it?” but then moved into some that needed more complicated answers.

“How about the war…?” He finally asked, his features becoming tenser, while he tried to sit on the bed, pushing the crisp white sheet away.

Peggy took three to five seconds to realise what he’d just asked. Her heart pounded inside her chest and a smile escaped as she replied.

“The war is over, Steve. We can go home.”


End file.
